Rum and Desperate Housewives —
Four Days in the Orinoco Delta

‘Rum,’
he said. ‘that is the secret. Every morning. At night, when
you are lying down, phlegm gathers in your tubes. That’s
why you cough when you get up. A glass of rum every morning, that’s
what you need. Clears the passages and then you can work all day.
And it stops you getting fat.’

There
is nothing straightforward about the Orinoco river, tumbling as it does
from the Andean heights of Colombia to a complex delta on the north-east
coast of Venezuela. Its big brother, the Amazon, is generally better
known, but the Orinoco is significant ecologically, and presents comparable
excitements to the unwary traveller.

The gateway to the delta is the bustling, hustling town
of Tucupita. Not that there was much bustling at the bus station when
we arrived at eight in the morning. The café was closed; a bank
of red plastic chairs stood empty; the toilet door refused to budge
(though its pong escaped). My friend, Alison, reached for her phone
and, as if by magic, conjured Richard (his parents very pro-British,
he explained), a swarthy man with a broad smile and unruly hair restrained
in a bandana.

‘You need breakfast,’ he announced. (How
did he know?) He swung both bags onto his shoulders and led us through
streets swarming with stalls selling everything from children’s
clothes to saucepans to nuts and bolts, finally plonking us at a table
and returning with coffee and fried cheese sandwiches. Revived, we followed
him to an old truck filled with black sacks, water bottles and several
Styrofoam boxes, threw our rucksacks on top and squeezed into the front
seat. Everything rattled as we trundled out of town, eventually sliding
to a halt on a slipway by the river. We climbed down into a mêlée
of yelling traders, running children and boats with chuntering engines.
Baskets overflowed with bananas, sweet-smelling stalls were piled with
bread. We were surrounded by rambling shacks, old cars — but very
few tourists.

Richard negotiated with a uniformed man, an exercise
that involved much arm-waving and back-slapping, and then steered us
towards a small boat. We were crammed between our rucksacks, provisions
for four days and a large black tarpaulin (its function evident when
it rained). A dark-skinned Indian climbed in behind us, perched on the
luggage, nodded his hellos, then the boat lurched into life. We left
the harbour at a sedate pace; once on the open river the engine roared
and we were pinioned to our seats.

We had one, brief, stop for lunch at a settlement by
the river where we were greeted by sure-footed children who tried not
to smirk as we slithered on the wet river-bank. They jumped in and out
of the river with the agility of gymnasts, gathering to pose when they
spotted us reaching for cameras.

‘You might be more comfortable if you sit on your
life-jackets,’ Richard suggested, as we clambered back into the
boat. He was right. We travelled 250 kilometres in four hours: the evidence
was extensive bruising on our bottoms, made only marginally less painful
by the rearrangement of our life-jackets and timely shifts between buttocks.

Given
the discomfort of the journey, we were ill-prepared for the beauty of
our lodge. Standing on poles driven deep into the water, a collection
of huts and gangways stood in a sheltered backwater, providing bedrooms
with balconies and hammocks, a central dining space, a kitchen (which
always smelled of frying), with bathrooms at the back. We stumbled from
the boat, fell into hammocks and absorbed the view. Two blue parrots
perched on a branch above the name-board and kissed.

Across
the river was San Francisco de Guayo: an affluent village by local standards,
and sustaining the only way of life possible in this watery landscape.
All the buildings, like ours, perched on poles. I call them ‘buildings’,
as if they fitted the familiar floor-wall-roof paradigm. There were
wooden platforms, covered with rushes or, occasionally, matting, with
struts to hold up rush roofs. With no walls there was no privacy; jumbles
of sparsely-clad adults and children milled about on the platforms with
no discernable family groups.

The following morning we clambered down into a canoe
and our Indian — we never learned his name — took us across
to the village. We were grateful for welcoming hands on the rickety
steps as we climbed onto the jetty, finding just one small stall selling
knick-knacks for tourists. We scrutinised a motley collection of ear-rings
and rusty penknives, a cluster of children tittering behind us, and
bought a couple of gaudy Christmas decorations to soothe our consciences.
We asked Richard how people survive here.

‘They fish, and some grow bananas and mangoes.
And the government helps now. Before Chavez they were on their own;
now the bigger villages like this have electricity. They have built
a small schoolroom here, and a doctor visits regularly.’

We
wandered along a narrow gangway, huts lining both sides, the gullies
beneath littered with plastic bottles. In spite of the breeze, whiffs
slid up from below from time to time. We passed a stinking, roaring
generator, its voice too loud for us even to speculate on the challenge
of living nearby. There were Indians everywhere, their distinctive wide-faced,
narrow-eyed features not betraying an emotion that we might define as
curiosity. Yet countless sat motionless on platforms and stalked us
with their eyes.

The gangway turned inland, but remained on its poles.
Flooding was common. Here we found a few communal buildings with walls,
one containing a large freezer.

‘There is a shop on the river — we can go
there if you wish,’ Richard explained.‘It's supplied by
the market in Tucipita. People are given money by the government so
they can buy food, and they keep it in here. It means they have a better
diet that simply living on fish and fruit from the jungle.’ A
small group of children bounded around us, presumably evidence of improved
nutrition in spite of the mantra of ‘sweeties’ which accompanied
them.

‘And in here is a television!’ Richard led
us into a hall and invited us to peer into the darkness. The floor area
was about the size of a small church, the air thick with cigarette smoke
and smell of almost-washed bodies, every pew and corner crammed with
Indians mesmerised by the flickering screen. They were watching Desperate
Housewives.

By now the sun was high in the sky and we returned to
the canoe, paddling back to our lodge for lunch. As our stomachs settled,
the torpid heat of the afternoon became soporific, the gentle lapping
of the water against our poles acting as a lullaby. Movement was an
effort and we flopped in hammocks, reading, dozing, and idly speculating
on life across the river.

This
set the pattern for the next few days. Explorations took place early
in the morning or late in the evening. Canoes took us into watery byways,
the plash plash of paddles competing only with the chirrup of insects
and occasional cry of a bird. Violent-blue butterflies skittered across
our path; tiny crabs scuttled awkwardly on the muddy foreshore; the
fantails of balsa trees sank into the water alongside the tangled roots
of mangoes.

One evening our Indian repeated this journey after dark: this time
a large frog croaked our arrival to all waiting wildlife — as
effective as a butler at a ball. With just one small torch we negotiated
both hanging branches and fallen tree-trunks, and even found a baby
alligator that we were invited to hold. Alison investigated its tiny
teeth and translated the Indian’s explanation for me: ‘Their
eyes reflect as pinpricks of red in the light of the torch. And yes,
the mother won’t be far away but alligators are peaceful animals
and will not hurt us.’ She clambered out of the boat with assurance
when we returned. I confess to being somewhat weak-kneed and reaching
for the rum.

‘Tomorrow,’ Richard assured us, ‘we will go to the
beach. You will not be frightened there.’

He was right. There was nothing frightening about the beach. In fact
there was nothing but our footprints on this beach. A huge sand spit
lay across this part of the estuary, making it possible to swim in the
Orinoco to the west before strolling across hot sand and falling into
the Atlantic to the east. Richard preened: he had taken us to paradise.
He had even brought lunch, packed in the Styrofoam boxes. But as the
sun climbed higher in the sky heat reflected off sand and water and
we began to fry.

‘Is there any shade?’ we asked. The answer was all too
obvious in this expanse of sand. Yet, undaunted, Richard and the Indian
gathered driftwood and sarongs to construct a makeshift shelter. We
turned our back to hide our giggles while they manipulated wood and
fabric at unlikely angles. Eventually, disillusioned with his thin-skinned
visitors, Richard agreed to take us to a cooler spot for lunch. He tied
the boat to the foliage at the base of a large tree, opened his box
and produced a steaming spaghetti bolognese. There was an incongruous
aroma of tomato and basil and we amazed ourselves by eating every mouthful.

Too soon, we woke to our final morning.

‘There is someone I want you to meet before we leave.’
Richard enticed us back into the canoe and paddled down a different
channel, mooring by a more substantial house with wooden walls and grumbling
generator. An old man, with a wide smile and no teeth, greeted us at
the top of the steps.

‘Richard,’ he exclaimed, ‘what beautiful visitors!’
His wife shuffled behind him, muttered ‘Buenon dias,’ and
disappeared. He led us into a small room with open spaces for windows
and walls lined with pictures of the Madonna and child. He thanked Richard
for bringing visitors to help him practise his English: although born
in the delta he had joined the navy, spending some time in America.
He had come home to grow mangoes and bananas, which he traded in Tucipita.

‘The government make it too easy,’ he insisted, ‘when
they give all this money to the Indians. They take the money then they
don’t have to work. Even here in the delta, people don’t
have to fish or grow things. The government gives it all to them. Venezuelans
are lazy. They must be made to work for their money.’ Alison and
I exchanged glances but said nothing. He leaned forward.

‘I’ll tell you a secret.’ He glanced around, and
then relaxed as he heard his wife clatter a bowl in a room we assumed
to be the kitchen. ‘Rum,’ he said. ‘that is the secret.
Every morning. At night, when you are lying down, phlegm gathers in
your tubes. That’s why you cough when you get up. A glass of rum
every morning, that’s what you need. Clears the passages and then
you can work all day. And it stops you getting fat.’ To prove
his point he patted his stomach, sucked on his cigarette and nodded
to Richard, who reached for a bottle from a high shelf and found some
small glasses. We prepared ourselves for a fiery onslaught and were
not disappointed. Conversation became oddly disjointed, ranging from
the merits of fidelity to surprise that, at the age of 56, I still had
all my own teeth.

And then the old man rose suddenly to his feet, tottered into a third
room and emerged with a battered keyboard. He seemed unaware of the
two missing black notes.

‘A present from some sailors,’ he explained, ample gums
exposed by the width of his grin. He pressed notes at random, no discernable
melody emerging, his chest swelling with pride. His wife emerged by
the kitchen door, smiled, and slowly shook her head. We raised our glasses
to her.

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